Author - Rishabh Kaul

RishabhKaul manages Business Development and Talent at Grey Orange, which is creating disruptive industrial automation products. Prior to Grey Orange, he was an Associate at Aavishkaar, where he invested in brick and mortar businesses. He graduated from BITS Pilani and the Young India Fellowship and blogs at http://thepec.tumblr.com and tweets at @rishabhkaul

A few days back I met a young entrepreneur running a very exciting company. Personally, I thought it was an emerging space; not yet very hot, but getting there. As our discussion progressed, we discussed his thought process, how he would go forward, the team he required to execute his expansion plans etc. By the end of the discussion I was thinking that the niche he was targeting was something which had scope for more players (there were a couple of folks already in this space) and if executed with the right partners, it could become big. There were a lot of ifs, but I found the space and the work the company did exciting. But would it mean that it would be the right investment for the firm I work with to make?

There are not too many openings at VC firms. It is one of the few industries with an inverted pyramid structure. More Partners than Analysts. More often than not, the people who are looking to enter the industry, are already playing the game, much before you saw that posting on iimjobs. The odds are most definitely against you. Once that is clear, it becomes easier to come to terms with it. Also, understand the other part of the reality. You are young, most likely you don’t have operational experience about either running a company or a sectoral expertise. So be humble and understand that you will have to put in extra hard work.

My little close to a year experience in venture capital firm has given me the following learnings. It isn’t sexy. Rural venture capital most definitely isn’t even sexy from a distance (We probably wear suits once a year). However it is exciting. Very exciting.

As a young person, here are some of the ways in which you can enter the industry: